Supplying an insightful introduction to current trends in general education reform, this second edition of "General Education Essentials: A Guide for College Faculty" gives an important, timely overview of general education curricular design. General education curricula provide students with the intellectual flexibility they need to…

"In Creating Inclusive Learning Opportunities in Higher Education," Sheryl Burgstahler provides a practical, step-by-step guide for putting the principles of universal design into action. The book offers multiple ways to access, engage with, and transform the higher education environment: making physical spaces welcoming to students of…

This article will discuss the importance of conscientious and purposeful establishment of positive culture and climate within online courses, particularly those offered within higher education and graduate programs. School culture and climate have been linked to student and faculty performance, satisfaction, efficacy, and overall learning and…

Epidemic is an apt adjective for describing the problem of academic dishonesty. When asked if they have cheated in the past year, a "disproportionately large number" (i.e., the majority) of secondary and tertiary students in the United States (and in every other country in which it's been studied) report having done so. The problem of…

Courses: Undergraduate or graduate organizational/crisis communication or public relations courses. Objective: The goal for this single class activity is for students to apply discourse of renewal to an organizational crisis fueled through social media.

Edutainment, while seemingly a new and trending idea, is quite simply the combination of education and entertainment, or improving learning by making it more engaging. What began as a way to teach children concepts in a fun way (e.g., School House Rock) has evolved into an integration of technology, design, and academics (e.g., TED talks).…

In order to increase the diversity in IS education, we discuss an approach for teaching medium-sized ERP systems in university courses. Many of today's IS curricula are biased toward a few large ERP packages. Nevertheless, these ERP systems are only a part of the ERP market. Therefore, this paper describes a course outline for an additional course…

Trigonometry is one of the topics in mathematics that the students in both high school and pre-undergraduate levels need to learn. Generally, the topic covers trigonometric functions, trigonometric equations, trigonometric identities and solving oblique triangles using the Laws of Sines and Cosines. However, when solving the oblique triangles,…

The purpose of this report is to describe a rationale and strategies for use of the Promising Syllabus (in Bain, 2004, What the best college teachers do). This syllabus reflects the learner-centered paradigm where students take charge of their own learning. The syllabus creates a series of promises between teacher and student, focusing on a…

Many professors do not give much thought to what students take away from their syllabi. Researchers who have formally pondered the question suggest a number of areas for instructors to consider when drafting a document which is described as a contract drafted with "less attention paid to the language" than any other. In a comparison of syllabi…

This article describes an approach to minimizing the "fear factor" in a chemistry course for the nonscience major, and also addresses relevant applications to other science courses, including biology, geology, and physics. The approach emphasizes forensic science and affords students the opportunity to hone their analytical skills in an…

Describes a course for chemical engineers, chemists, and petroleum engineers that focuses on colloid and surface science. Major topic areas in the course include capillarity, surface thermodynamics, adsorption contact angle, micelle formation, solubilization in micelles, emulsions, foams, and applications. (JN)

Presents a course, Physics and Time, that centers on a few topics that students with limited mathematics training and no previous science can explore in depth. Discusses concepts of time, measuring time, arrows of time, and linearity versus nonlinearity. (JRH)

The organization and contents of a linear algebra course for chemical engineers are described. The course, which emphasizes both abstraction and application, meets twice a week for two hours and runs largely as a lecture, although active student participation is encouraged by frequent questions from the instructor. (JN)

Discusses the Keller Plan or personalized system of instruction (PSI), a mastery-oriented, self-paced, modular teaching strategy using student/peer proctors. Success for PSI in chemical engineering, operations research, electrical engineering, and nuclear engineering courses is explained. (DH)